Friday, 8 January 2010

A Blue Jays' fan of my acquaintance is cutting up rough on Facebook about the failure of Alomar, just, to reach the 75 per cent threshold for election. He probably feels the same way as Ken Rosenthal. I can't agree, and reproduce on my blog my post at this Baseball Think Factory thread.

This article is a good piece of advocacy journalism, but in its substance is not really that different to the piñatas that regularly get posted here from Chass, Pearlman and whomever.

Rosenthal basically wants to strip people of their votes because they don't put in the work. He says:

I’m still trying to figure out why 143 voters failed to endorse Alomar

He then enunciates the following reasons:1) The First-Ballot honour - he 'respects' the view that maybe Alomar isn't inner-circle.2) The spitting incident - yes, people should move on, and they've got 14 more years to do so. Penance involves a penalty.3) The cliff-diving once he joined the Mets.

Having then described three sound reasons for not voting for Alomar the first time round, Rosenthal appoints himself judge and jury to say

Put it all together, and it’s easy to understand why he might have lost small pockets of support. But 143 “no” votes? Sorry, that number is too high to make sense.

Is it? You don't have to be a New York sportswriter or fan to be annoyed about Alomar's time with the Mets, if you are really being objective about his claim to Fame. It's just as meaningful to anyone who is a real baseball fan.

If this article needs to be written next year, I'm more likely to think he's right, and we need a Pride's Purge of the BBWAA. But at the moment, this is an overreaction.

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About fra paolo

He was a fan of the Montréal Expos, because they were the closest team to London, England, where he lived from 1982 until 2008. For now he lives in Ontario, from where he keeps an eye on the Detroit Tigers and other baseballing matters.

(The title alludes to St Augustine of Hippo's De Civitate Dei contra Paganos, in case theology isn't on your curriculum vitae.)

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